July 9, 2016 by Marios

Spaghetti with Tuna and Capers

When I was in college, my friend Todd and I both played the guitar and sang a little (not very well, but we were young and didn’t care). So we decided to try and take our act public. We booked a night at the student-run coffeeshop in the basement of one of the dorms and started practicing. This was the early 90s so our repertoire included songs by Pearl Jam, Lenny Kravitz, and Sting, among others. About a week before our debut, I got a phone call from the coffeeshop. They were going to print flyers to advertise the night around campus and needed to know the name of our band.

We didn’t have one.

In a panic, I told them I’d call them right back. Since this was way before the age of cell phones, I couldn’t reach Todd so I realized I had to take matters into my own hands. I picked up my pocket dictionary, opened it at a random page and pointed to a random word. Then I did it again. I decided that those two words would be our band name.

We were going to be called Mystic Rain.

A few hours later I saw Todd at the cafeteria and I told him about the phone call. When I got to the point where I announced our new band name, Todd’s face collapsed. Here was my grunge-loving, REM-worshiping, Nirvana-fanatic friend Todd being told he was now part of a band called Mystic Rain. When I saw his reaction I realized what I’d done. We ran out of there and called the coffeeshop and thankfully, they hadn’t printed the flyers yet. When they finally did, we were billed simply as Todd and Marios.

Randomness isn’t always kind. But for every Mystic Rain disaster there’s a spaghetti with tuna and capers success. I made this dish for the first time many years ago when I was living alone and had to eat something quickly. I picked the random ingredients I could find in my kitchen and came up with this dish. I’ve made it countless times since then, for many friends, all of whom have loved it. It’s simple, but the combination of mustard, tuna, capers, and onions is a real hit. Much to the horror of my Italian friend Simona, for whom I made this once, I like to grate Parmesan cheese on top before eating it. Apparently, Italians never put cheese on seafood pasta, but call me a rebel, I love it.

Spaghetti with Tuna and Capers

Makes 2 servings

Ingredients:

1/2 lb (250g) spaghetti
1/4 cup olive oil
1 small onion or three large shallots, chopped
2 5oz (142g) cans of tuna (preferably solid white albacore), drained
2 tablespoons wholegrain dijon mustard
2 tablespoons capers in brine, drained
freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Cook spaghetti in a large pot in well-salted water until al dente. Before draining the pasta, reserve 1/4 cup of the pasta water.

Meanwhile, in a large sauté pan, cook the onions or shallots in the 1/4 cup of olive oil over medium high heat until just starting to turn golden brown, about 10 minutes. Add the mustard and stir to combine. Add the tuna (breaking up any big pieces with a spatula), capers, and reserved pasta water and stir to combine. Bring to a low simmer and keep warm.

Drain spaghetti and return to pot. Scrape the tuna and caper mixture over the spaghetti and using kitchen tongs, toss well.

Serve with plenty of freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

August 22, 2015 by Marios

Macadamia and Basil Pesto

On Wednesday night, we took our friend Martine who’s visiting us from France to see “Kinky Boots” on Broadway. It’s a fun show, a real crowdpleaser, and Martine loved it. It was nice to go back to the theater. When we lived in Hell’s Kitchen we used to go very often since we were just a few blocks away from Broadway, but since we moved to Brooklyn, we don’t go that much, which is a shame. I love the theater. It’s such a truly transporting experience (or a soporific one, when you hit the wrong show).

The issue one always has to deal with, when going to a show in New York, is dinner. Since shows start at 8pm (with a few exceptions), most visitors take advantage of the pre-theater dinners at many of the local restaurants. They start at 6pm-6:30pm and they get you out in time for your show. Steve and I, however, would eat at home. We wanted something quick and easy, so we almost always opted for pasta. In the summer, we would make pesto (from a recipe from Steve’s mom, Cora) and freeze it in portions, so that we could have it all year round, including for a pre-theater quick dinner at home.

After a couple of shows, however, we realized that we needed a new plan. You see, Cora’s pesto uses a lot of raw garlic. The first time we ate pasta with pesto and we went to a show, ten minutes into it, we started burping deadly fumes. We could smell each other’s garlic breath and we were sure that so could all the other people around us. After a second show where we exposed people to our garlic breath bombs, we decided to switch dinner ideas.

So, I came up with a different version of a pesto that is without garlic. It still packs a punch, with lemon zest and parmesan, but it’s gentler on the people sitting next to you who may not like to be tear gassed while watching a play.

Macadamia and Basil Pesto

Make 1/2 cup pesto, enough for 4 pasta servings

Ingredients:

2 cups loosely packed basil
grated zest of half a lemon
1 cup grated parmesan or pecorino
2 tablespoons olive oil
12 macadamia nuts, toasted in 350° oven for 6-7 minutes, cooled, and roughly chopped
1/4 tsp salt

Directions:

Place everything, except oil in a food processor. Pulse a couple of times to combine. Start the food processor and drizzle oil in while processor is running. Pesto will be thick. Add some hot pasta water to dilute and mix with hot, cooked pasta.

August 8, 2015 by Marios

Pasta with Peas and Pine Nuts in Minted Yogurt Sauce

For three weeks, Steve and I went completely gluten free. It was meant to be a test, to see if gluten is the source of my joint problems that I’ve had for the last twenty years or so. It’s become almost a joke with my friends. “What’s hurting this week?” I seem to develop tendonitis at the drop of a hat, and in some cases it takes years to go away (or never has, like with my shoulder). I’ve had various blood tests that haven’t shown any severe allergies or auto immune disorders, but we thought that maybe I have an intolerance for gluten that isn’t full blown celiac disease. A friend of ours who does have celiac was a very good source of information on going gluten free. So, we both gave it a try. Here’s what happened in those three weeks:

A blood vessel burst in Steve’s right eye (nothing serious, but it did fill the inside of his eye’s white with red blood)
I developed a weird rash on my upper body and started getting itchy at night
The pain in my hip that I’ve been trying to treat for two years and which had been getting a little better started getting worse
I developed a persistent heartburn

You get the idea. We didn’t feel any different or better by giving up gluten, so we ruled out gluten as a source of problems for me. Though we did joke that all of the things that happened to us during those three weeks were due to a severe gluten deficiency.

Here’s what I did learn by going gluten free for three weeks:

In some ways, it’s relatively easy. You can eat almost everything, except wheat, barley, and rye, which can hide themselves in foods without you realizing it. But because of the gluten free craze, everything is well labeled and most restaurants indicate gluten free dishes on their menus
You also don’t have to give up cake or pancakes or any baked goods like that because there is a fantastic gluten free flour called Cup 4 Cup that works incredibly well. I made a few cakes with it and we couldn’t tell the difference.
I some ways it’s also very hard. If you have celiac disease, then you have to worry about gluten cross-contamination. If someone uses the same knife to cut bread that they use to cut your meat, depending on the severity of your allergy you can get very sick. That’s very hard to control, especially when eating out in restaurants.
Bread is virtually impossible to replicate without gluten. So is pizza crust. All of a sudden, because we couldn’t eat them, bread and pizza because something we craved endlessly. There are gluten free pizzas and breads, but none that we tried came close to the original.
Pasta is a different deal. There are some great pastas made with non-wheat flours (like corn and quinoa) that taste fantastic and even have that pasta chewiness. And since most recipes for pasta (like the one here) use ingredients that are gluten free, you can eat pasta to your heart’s content.

Our gluten free experiment ended last Sunday with white bread toast, slathered with butter and apricot jam. We are considering going off sugar for three weeks next but that’s much tougher. For now, we’ll replenish the gluten in our body and go from there.

Pasta with Peas and Pine Nuts in Minted Yogurt Sauce – Adapted from Jerusalem: A Cookbook

Ingredients:

3/4 cup (7 oz; 200 g) whole-milk Greek yogurt
1/3 cup (75 ml) olive oil
1 small clove garlic, pressed or grated on microplane
10-12 mint leaves
finely grated zest of 1 lemon
10 oz fresh or thawed frozen peas
6 oz pasta shapes of your liking
1/4 cup (30 g) pine nuts
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper (or 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes)
4 oz (120 g) feta cheese, coarsely crumbled

Directions:

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the yogurt, 3 tablespoons (45 ml) of the olive oil, the garlic, the mint leaves, the lemon zest, and 2 oz (about 1/3 cup) of the peas. Process to a uniform pale green sauce, and transfer to a large mixing bowl.

Cook pasta in boiling salted water until it is al dente. While the pasta cooks, warm the remaining olive oil in a small frying pan over medium heat. Add the pine nuts and Aleppo pepper or chile flakes, and cook for 2-3 minutes, or until the pine nuts are golden and the oil is deep red. Also, warm the remaining peas in some boiling water (you could use some of the pasta water for this) and drain them.

Drain the cooked pasta into a colander, and shake it well to get rid of excess water that may have settled into the pasta’s crevices. Add the pasta gradually to the yogurt sauce; adding it all at once may cause the yogurt to separate. Add the warm peas and feta. Toss gently. Taste and adjust salt. Serve immediately, with pine nuts and chile oil spooned over each serving.

July 20, 2014 by Marios

Pastitsio / Παστιτσιο (Makaronia tou Fournou / Μακαρονια του φουρνου)

We have a tradition. When I go back home to visit my family, my mom makes the foods of my childhood that I miss. There’s koupepia, grape leaves stuffed with meat and rice and cooked in a tomato sauce, there’s rabbit stewed in onions and red wine, and there’s always makaronia tou fournou, known as pastitsio in Greece.

Over the years, I’ve gotten recipes from my mom so that I could make these dishes myself whenever I wanted to. It’s not very easy. She has no written recipes and her measurements and directions don’t use American standards. When she says a cup of flour, she’s talking about a drinking glass she’s always used to measure. There are no exact times either. You may cook something until “it drinks its water,” meaning that the liquid evaporates, or until it katastithei, which means that its sauce thickens.

So, I do my best and transcribe the recipes as well as I can and when I come back to New York I try them out a few times until I get the exact measurements that result in a dish as close to my mom’s as possible. An additional problem is that the ingredients may be different or tough to find. That’s the case, for example, with this recipe for pastitsio. While almost everything is readily accessible in the U.S., the macaroni my mom uses is tough to find. Though, as I explain in the recipe, any round macaroni would work fine. For a while, I couldn’t find halloumi either, the cheese from Cyprus that’s made with sheep and goat milks and has salt and bits of mint in it. It’s famous for not melting, so you can grill it or sauté it in a pan, but here it’s grated and added to the dish. Fortunately, halloumi is now sold in all grocery stores.

So, here it is. My mom’s recipe for pastitsio or makaronia tou fournou. It’s not a difficult recipe, but it does have several steps. It’s a great project for a Sunday. If you are concerned about the quantity this recipe makes, after the pastitsio is cooked and cools down completely, you can cut it in portions and freeze them, wrapped in plastic. Whenever you want to eat it, defrost it in the fridge overnight and then reheat it in a 300° F oven for 15 minutes or until it’s warm through. Don’t microwave it because it will give it a strong egg taste.

I guarantee you that you will not regret making this dish. It’s a perfect combination of pasta, meat, and cream. I’ve been making it myself for years but my mom still makes it for me when I go home. After all, no matter how close my own pastitsio gets to my mom’s, hers is always better.

Pastitsio (Makaronia to Fournou / Μακαρονια του φουρνου)

Notes: The pasta my mom uses is Mezzani A. If you can’t find it, use any thick, tube-shaped pasta. The chicken bouillon cubes are essential, so don’t skip them or change them. My mom has always used the Maggi brand. Same goes for the halloumi cheese. It’s irreplaceable in the recipe. Fortunately, most grocery stores carry it.

Ingredients:

Meat layer:
1-1.5 lbs ground pork or chicken
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
7 oz (200 gr) diced tomatoes in juice (half of a 14.5 oz can)
½ cup chopped parsley
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 chicken bouillon cube, crumbled
1/4 cup red (for pork) or white (for chicken) wine

Pasta layer:
1 lb mezzani pasta (see note)
1 whole halloumi cheese, finely grated
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 chicken bouillon cube, crumbled
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Bechamel sauce:
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (or shortening, or combination of the two)
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 liter milk
2 large eggs
1 whole halloumi finely grated
3 tablespoons unseasoned, dry breadcrumbs

Directions:

First, make the meat layer. Cook the onion in olive oil over medium high heat, stirring often, for about 4 minutes. Add ground meat. Cook for another 5 minutes, stirring often and breaking up any clumps. Add wine, salt and pepper, cinnamon, parsley, 1/2 maggi and tomatoes. Stir together and cook until almost all liquid has evaporated, about 12-15 minutes. Set aside and proceed with the rest of the recipe. DO AHEAD: Meat can be prepared up to 2 days ahead and stored in refrigerator, covered.

Then, make the pasta layer. If pasta is long, break into thirds, about 4 inches long. Cook pasta in plenty of unsalted water till al dente. Drain and return to pot. While still hot, add maggi, butter, and egg while stirring until the butter is melted. Add the halloumi. Stir well until everything is combined.

Put 3/4 of cooked pasta in bottom of 9 by 13 oval pan that is at least 2 ½ inches deep, then add meat and finally add remaining pasta on top.

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Make the bechamel. Melt butter in a medium pot over medium heat. When butter melts and begins to bubble, whisk in flour and cook, whisking frequently, until flour is cooked and just begins to turn darker in color about 5 to 6 minutes. Add all the milk at once, whisking continuously until thoroughly combined. Continue to simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Lightly beat eggs, temper them with a little of the hot thickened milk, and add carefully to béchamel, whisking constantly. Remove from heat. Add grated halloumi and stir well.

Spread bechamel on top of pasta and meat making sure to cover all the way to the edges. Smooth top with back of spoon. Sprinkle breadcrumbs on top and bake at 350° F for about an hour till top is golden brown.

March 22, 2014 by Marios

Baked Pasta with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage

Substitutions don’t always work.

Years ago, when I was just learning French, I was in Paris and my carpal tunnel syndrome was acting up. I needed to get a wrist splint to help alleviate the pain. An online search for the French word for “splint” was fruitless, so I decided I would just describe it. I walked into the first pharmacy and approached the pharmacist. In my halting French, I started to speak.

“Hello. I need something – I don’t know the word in French – something to fix my wrist in place.”

The pharmacist looked at me funny. I continued, undaunted.

“You see, my wrist is inflamed and it hurts, so I need something to restrict it.”

I could see a smile starting to take place on the pharmacist’s lips. Actually, no, that wasn’t a smile. It was a suppressed laugh!

“There is an inflammation in my wrist,” I went on, “and I need this thing you use to stop it from moving.”

I could tell that the pharmacist could barely contain herself. I started to mimic a splint, encircling my wrist with the other hand, showing her how it works.

“Oh! No monsieur,” she immediately replied, looking relieved. “We don’t have any. I’m sorry.”

I walked out of the pharmacy confused. Why was she so close to breaking out in laughter? Was my French so bad? On a hunch, I pulled out my phone and did a couple of searchers on my online French-English dictionary. I immediately started laughing out loud.

The French word for wrist is poignet. Unfortunately, in my explanation to the pharmacist, I had substituted it with the word poitrine, a word that means bosom or breasts. I had just asked her for something to fix my breasts in place because they were inflamed.

Like I said, substitutions don’t always work.

The recipe below, however, can take just about any substitution. No broccoli rabe? Use regular broccoli (like I did here), or brussel sprouts, or squash, or any other vegetable you have. Just adjust its cooking time, or use it precooked in the case of squash. No mozzarella? Use any left over cheese in your refrigerator. The sausage used can be made from just about anything, beef, pork, chicken, or replaced with mushrooms if you’re a vegetarian.

Baked Pasta with Broccoli Rabe and Sausage – Slightly adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:

1 pound chunky pasta of your choice (such as penne or orecchiette)
1 bundle broccoli rabe, stems and leaves cut into 1-inch segments (or about 3-4 cups of chopped up broccoli)
1 pound Italian sausage (or your favorite uncooked sausage), casings removed
2/3 cup grated parmesan or pecorino romano cheese
6 ounces mozzarella, cut into small cubes
2 cups whole milk
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon table salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
Few gratings fresh nutmeg

Directions:

Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil. Add pasta and five minutes before its cooking time is up, add the broccoli rabe (for regular broccoli, add it 3 minutes before it’s done). Drain the broccoli rabe and pasta together and place in a large bowl.

Meanwhile, heat 1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large, wide saucepan (you will use this for the bechamel in a few minutes; you could also use your pasta pot, once it is drained) over medium heat. When hot, add the sausage, breaking it up with a wooden spoon until it starts to brown, about five minutes. Remove with slotted spoon or spatula, leaving any fat behind. Eyeball the drippings and use one tablespoon less butter next if it looks like there’s more than a tablespoon there. Any less, don’t worry about adjusting the butter.

Heat oven to 400º F.

Melt your butter in same saucepan that you cooked the sausage in over medium heat. Once melted, add your flour and stir it into the butter until smooth. Cook the mixture together for a minute, stirring constantly. Pour in a small drizzle of your milk, whisking constantly into the butter-flour mixture until smooth. Continue to drizzle a very small amount at a time, whisking constantly. Once you’ve added a little over half of your milk, you’ll find that you have more of a thick sauce or batter, and you can start adding the milk in larger splashes, being sure to keep mixing. Once all of the milk is added, add the salt, garlic, nutmeg, and few grinds of black pepper, and bring the mixture to a lower simmer and cook it, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes. Taste and adjust seasonings if needed.

Add the sausage and bechamel to the bowl with the pasta and broccoli rabe. Stir in mozzarella and half of grated parmesan or pecorino until combined. Pour into a lasagna pan, deep 9×13-inch baking dish or 3-quart casserole dish and coat with remaining parmesan or pecorino. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the edges and craggy points are nicely bronzed.

September 7, 2013 by Marios

Spaghetti with Garlic, Lemon, and Parsley

The day after our wedding, I began to lose my ability to smell and taste. It happened gradually but quickly. I first noticed that I was having a hard time smelling some of the more nuanced notes in food. At the same time, I started experiencing a phantom smell and taste. It had a strange herbal, slightly toasted quality and I began to smell it in everything. While in Iceland, everything had this strange taste. At first I thought it was a local herb they used in most of their food. We even asked a waitress about it but she had no idea what we were talking about. Steve and I started joking that it was the taste of lamb that was permeating everything, since lamb was so common in Iceland.

By the end of the trip, things had gotten worse. When we got back to New York I pretty much lost the ability to smell anything but the strongest odors and I could only taste strong and basic flavors: sweet, salty, bitter. Some things, like coffee, now tasted and smelled exclusively of that weird toasted herbal phantom flavor. It was obvious something was wrong.

There are times when not being able to smell can be a blessing (yes, I am talking about you, mister I-don’t-wear-deodorant-at-the-gym). But those times are very few. Not being able to taste or smell food was devastating for me. I was trying not to panic but it was hard not to. Beyond the loss of pleasure from food, I started to feel a strange kind of isolation from everything around me. Like I was living in a plastic bubble. I realized how much our sense of smell helps connect us to our surroundings, much like our sight and hearing.

A quick visit to Dr. Google was not very reassuring (is it ever?). There were lots of Greek words, like anosmia (complete loss of smell), parosmia (inability to correctly smell), and dysgeusia (distortion of sense of taste). The probable causes of my symptoms were many and some were very scary.

So, last Wednesday I went to a real doctor, an ENT. Within 5 minutes I was diagnosed. I had a “giant” (his word) polyp in each nostril which was blocking my olfactory nerves. Fortunately, nothing too serious. He recommended an aggressive treatment with Prednisone and antibiotics for a month, and Flonase “for the rest of my life” (his words again). Surgery would be the next step, if the polyps didn’t respond to the meds.

A quick visit to Dr. Google again (I know, I can’t resist) revealed that nasal polyps are common for people with chronic sinusitis and allergies (that would be me) and that they are especially common among men over the age of 40 (damn you 40s! You are so not the new 30s, no matter what anyone says).

I started the meds on Thursday morning. By Friday night, I was feeling much better. My sinuses were no longer clogged up and I was starting to smell and taste things again. Both Steve and I were immensely relieved. This spaghetti with garlic, lemon, and parsley is what I made and it was the first thing I was able to taste correctly in about 3 weeks. I’ve always liked this dish but on that night I thought it was the best thing I had ever tasted.

Spaghetti with Garlic, Lemon, and Parsley
Slightly adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook: More than 1000 recipes

Serves 4

1 lb spaghetti
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 large garlic cloves, minced
1/2-3/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
Finely grated zest of 2 lemons
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

Cook pasta in a 6-8 quart pot of boiling salted water (1 T salt for every 4 quarts water) until al dente. Reserve 1 cup cooking water and drain pasta.

Meanwhile, heat oil in a 12 inch heavy skillet over moderately low heat. Add garlic and red pepper flakes and cook, stirring, until garlic is golden, about 3 minutes.

Stir lemon zest into skillet, then stir in juice, salt, pepper, and 1/2 cup reserved cooking water and bring to a simmer.

Toss pasta in sauce with parsley. Add more cooking water if pasta seems dry.

Serve with freshly grated parmesan cheese on top.